The Atlanta-based Cirque is a company of performers who excel in circus arts of a style familiar to audiences of Cirque du Soleil and Cirque Eloize, which last summer started a five-year residency at Proctors. In other words, there were no snarling tigers nor lumbering pachyderms in sequined bonnets on the Palace Theatre stage on Saturday night as the Albany Symphony Orchestra played 16 familiar classical pieces, a dozen of which were accompaniment for acts including juggling, magic, contortion and aerial work on rope, straps and long, streaming ribbons. (The company will be back in the area in August for a show at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center with the Philadelphia Orchestra.)

The ASO’s music director and conductor, David Alan Miller, is the perfect maestro for this sort of thing. Ebullient and witty, Miller joked about having “the worst seat in the house,” because his back was to the performers, and about having to duck beneath Vitalii Buza as the performer soared overheard on aerial straps while the ASO played John William’s theme to the original “Superman” movie. Miller even got into the act himself, when, while hidden behind a curtain with performer Elena Tsarkov, who was complicatedly tied up by rope, Tsarkov somehow emerged wearing Miller’s tux jacket beneath her bindings.

Tsarkov and her husband, Vladimir, whose character is a classic circus harlequin, were among the evening’s highlights, appearing a half-dozen times apiece. Vladimir Tsarkov’s ring juggling, set to a crisply played “Danse Boheme” from Bizet’s “Carmen,” was extraordinary, particularly when he bounced the rings behind him, and he brought novelty to his pin juggling by having a front-row audience member toss him pins while he juggled. (The latter was set to Khachaturian’s “Sabre Dance” from “Gayaneh.”) The ASO was in fine form all night, professional and precise if not exactly challenged by the selections.

The circus performers were all remarkably fit physical specimens, of course, and Buza’s feats of strength and body control during his straps act were extraordinary to behold. Elena Tsarkova’s contortions were similarly impressive, but nothing on the Palace stage was truly breathtaking for anyone who has seen a top-flight circus in the last 15 years. Case in point: Buza’s stint on the Cyr wheel, which is basically a 7-foot-diameter hula hoop. Only at the very end did he get the wheel below a 45-degree angle while balancing atop it. More adept performers take it to that extreme multiple times during their acts. It’s a minor but revealing quibble: It still looks good, but it’s not the best.